147915-instances-killed-the-mmo-star
Content ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- So much pain | |} ---- ---- Oh god the lag..... thanks for the returning nightmares :P Edited December 7, 2015 by Wolfuse | |} ---- I was there Atomicpanda, and I agree anyone who experienced that lag hell is a firm believer in instancing. I went back and checked my screenshots of the event. It took me 68 seconds to cast Mark of the Wild and I was at 2.3fps. | |} ---- ---- ---- You aaaaare the mmo StaAaAaAar. | |} ---- ---- Yeah, instances took over mmos. It's amazing, you have a game world that holds hundreds of players and developers never use the mmo aspect to build neat game play. Instead the open world is a queue zone for smaller group dungeons. It seems 95% of mmos took this route. Edited December 7, 2015 by Tar | |} ---- ---- ---- There's a price to be paid for more elaborate character models, faster combat, bigger effects, and more elaborate worlds. Our telecommunications networks don't advance as quickly as the machines we access them on, and in order to maintain performance with groups of people, something's got to give. | |} ---- That's one reason this thread makes me scratch my head. They kind of limit zone events in early zones but they're still there, and when you get to end game zones they're a staple of daily life. Wildstar does a lot in this regard. | |} ---- ---- Were you also in a hardcore raiding guild in Vanilla WoW? You weren't talking about how those were the good ol' days and now everyone wants everything handed to them. So I'm a little skeptical about your credentials. :P Instances used to scare me. To this day, I like doing Open World stuff more than anything but I kinda have max rep everywhere and it's kinda getting repetitive to repeat dailies over and over. Raiding is also fun, but I actually enjoy the social aspect of it more than anything. Most instances don't feel that social to me which is funny because some like to say that those of us who don't like running instances are anti-social. | |} ---- ---- ---- The ' I'm 30 etc etc ' was a joke-point directed to a guy here xD. Not really doing a 'curriculum' thing XD. I'm actually neutral to this discussion. I have no problem with instances. but I understand why someone can struggle with them for various reasons, however I don't think that they're effecting (affecting?) negatively a/the game in any way. Check the last CRB Designer post for a different, complete, POV =3 Edited December 8, 2015 by DorianTail | |} ---- ---- I can see how instances are preferable, even necessary, for story / quest driven content and also for complex boss encounters. But they have become a bit of a design crutch. Partly because MMOs now seem totally dominated by story and scripted events. Plus also obsessed with making players the 'chosen one', so everything has to be set up for them to have a pristine story experience. Even if this means there's lots of other players simultaneously living out the same story in their own instances, only to emerge proclaiming "I saved the world" at the same time a whole bunch of other players do the same. Personally I think that for straight up dungeon crawling you can't beat a good public dungeon. It has to be large enough that players and groups aren't treading on each others toes and difficulty set so that some areas are possible solo / duo whilst teamwork is required to get to the deepest and toughest corners. Bosses in these places should behave just like world bosses do. Public dungeons, if designed right, can be far more social and "MMO-ish" than instanced dungeons. Design them wrong though and there's all sorts of silly issues with spawn camping, mob tagging, loot stealing etc (loot needs to be personal loot that everyone who participates gets so that there aren't any arguments). In other words, both instanced and non-instanced dungeons have their place. | |} ---- ---- To counterpoint this, instances are the most realistic option for making excellent sandbox content in an MMO. There'd be no way for Wildstar to do housing as we know it without instancing. There'd be no way for City of Heroes to create the Mission Architect system without instancing. Just like any development decision, it's about choices and what technology gets you the most of what you wanted without opening yourself up to problems. You call it a crutch, I call it a good pair of shoes that lets a developer get a lot farther than they would normally, most of the time. Edited December 8, 2015 by Lemurian | |} ---- I think we might be talking at cross purposes. Wildstar's housing isn't instanced. Yes it's behind a loading screen because it's a different zone. But it's not instanced in the sense that there is only one version of your house, my house etc. So if I'm having a party on my Wildstar housing plot and everyone is invited, everyone will be in the same place (unless there's some overflow code which would open a new instance after a certain number of occupants is reached?). Instanced dungeons of course behave very differently. Your Skullcano won't be mine, unless we're in the same group of course. The reason I feel over-reliance on instanced content is a crutch is because it is easier to develop for (as Caydiem explained) so it becomes the de-facto standard. Open world and sandboxed content becomes less and less of a priority and so the technical problems associated with that form of content never get properly addressed (hence all the lag at zone events like Scorchwing etc). Why bother fixing the lag when lots of players honeypot if you can parcel them up into instances instead? But every time you do this, you lose a part of the "massively multiplayer" experience of MMOs. MMOs with too much instanced content end up with a diminished sense of community and the only contact players have with each other outside of instances tends to be capital cities which become like lobbies. On the plus side, Wildstar does have quite a lot of zone events and world bosses and players are encouraged into these via Contracts, dailies etc. This is good. Sadly the associated lag isn't. I can see the attraction to the devs of trying to move as much as possible into instances, but I wish there was a way to solve the lag issues so we can have more non-instanced content. | |} ---- Well, if you want to talk train's, you can't forget Crushbone, most players first introduction to train's. Or Mistmoore. But since this thread is about instancing, then I have to remind you of "/yell camp check"... :) | |} ---- ---- All housing plots are instances of a housing plot. The player is given limited control of objects within the plot, and there's no overflow code that will copy your version of the housing plot, but that doesn't make it not an instance. Differences in ruleset to differentiate a specialized type of private instance from public instances doesn't change what they are at their core. Edited December 8, 2015 by Lemurian | |} ---- I'll take instanced content any day. I don't get why you're so keen on slideshows in major cities with all the players around. There isn't some automagical 'fix it' button for these types of latency spikes and fps drop issues in major cities and in areas with tons of players around. Some older MMOs managed to do it, but those same MMOs are also shut down or on life support. If you can convince John Carmack to return to gaming and pay him enough to create a fantastic and optimized MMO game engine that allows for tons of players with minimal to no fps drops on modest hardware, then we may see the resurgance of non-instanced content. I appreciate what the coders at Carbine have done but I have to say one sad fact: Sorry people, none of you will ever do as good a job at coding as John Carmack. Just admit that much. Eve Online, one of the most heavily open-world games has to deal with 'massive battles' where 'time dilation' happens just so people can get slideshow-worthy spreadsheet combat done possibly within a few hours in between disconnects and relogging. Because spending limited time & resources on stuff that few or no people will bother with is something that Carbine doesn't wanna deal with? Ok then. If you want stupidly-difficult and nonsensical 'world boss' content there is always that Ultimate-whatever boss Final Fantasy 11 and a few other MMOs out there to give a whirl. Then see just how 'fun' it is when you actually get your wish and come back to WildStar. Aion Online did exactly this to try to get higher levels into 'world PvPvE' in the near-empty Abyss zone. It worked for a while until the dominant faction basically trolled everyone else and the others just went back to instanced content because imbalanced factions are imbalanced. Then new content came out that rendered that boss a joke and the gear worthless so it is yet another piece of outdated content again. Edited December 8, 2015 by FantasticCupcake | |} ---- Yes, they did. And they did it with far inferior hardware and at a time when most players were still on 56k modems. A lot of older (often sandbox) MMOs were much better at coping with honeypots of players, within limits of course. Probably because most of these MMOs had engines designed for the purpose of being massively multiplayer and of course graphics and animations were more rudimentary. Theme park MMOs just aren't designedso well for this. their focus is different. Hard to forget WoW's first attempt at world PvP, with the Tarren Mill lag fests. Yet other competing titles at the time, many of which WoW eventually forced into life support, could have handled such battles so much better. | |} ---- If we have to take severe downgrades in graphics and gameplay (action combat with telegraphs) to revert back to tab-target clickfests then no thank you. The MMO world has changed since pre-2004. Let them stand as historical relics and remain in the past. Now if we can get this done in modern action-combat games (somehow!?) while keeping them free to play (or at least the standard $15 a month sub) then that would be awesome. But the sheer amount of technical work and money involved is not something Carbine can afford to experiment with. All those crowdfunded darling MMOs that haven't even broken out of alpha-status in quality are still ALL tab-target trash games. If I wanted garbage tab-target games I'd go back to slagging Aion and deal with all the hackers there one way or another (likely by rolling a Templar and trolling them hardcore for cheap Twitch sub whoring; maybe if I wear a low-cut shirt or go shirtless then all the ladies will join my stream? haha....) | |} ---- I was just being silly. I see so many posts, and even talked to players who like giving out their MMO credentials that it's become a bit of a silly game to me. I apologize for not being clear. | |} ---- Trust me, if it drops good loot, EVERYONE WILL BOTHER WITH IT. The only reason people don't farm World bosses right now is because the drops are trash. Literally the ONLY thing that people really care about in MMOs is where to get the best stuff. Edited December 8, 2015 by Seztren | |} ---- No one farms World Bosses right now?! I see WB trains all the time! Personally, I'm a fan of the decor and pets. I would like to see more Open World progression though. I suppose the majority cares about getting the best stuff, but I'm kinda happy I'm not progressing beyond GA atm because then I will say goodbye to all my gold for runeing up. | |} ---- ---- Do you want the answer that will make you happy, or the answer that will make you sad? | |} ---- ---- Your server must be very different from mine, because people farm the *cupcake* out of WBs on Entity. I think it's a shame that they are zergfests and would like to see them instanced so a group of 20 would actually experience all the mechanics, but I can't deny that in their present state they are providing a lot of fun for a lot of people. So my thought right now is that they create instanced versions that drop slightly better loot (like ilvl 94 or maybe orange versions of the ilvl 90s they currently drop). | |} ---- Have you participated in any of the World Boss groups? Very often people need to form overflow raids on both factions due to how many people are involved. It's very rare to see any of the actual mechanics because the bosses die in seconds. I think that's kind of a shame but it seems to be really popular. The second sentence of the above quote is key. The only way to effective ensure that multiple groups have enough separation is instances. Have you moved on from Entity? There was a World Boss train that purportedly was running for 10+ hours over the weekend. On a non-contract day at the end of the lockout week. I see them being organized every night during US Prime Time. In other words there seems to be enough incentive for them to be done regardless of contract completion or Elder Gem weekly. Edited December 8, 2015 by PlasmaJohn | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- The largest source of lag recently wasn't due to too many players in one spot though. It was too many players playing the game and causing DB bottlenecks. You could have an instance for every single player and still have that problem. Why is there major lag in DS? That's instanced. Why is there weird lag spikes in Expeditions at times? That's instanced....lag is a beast that is very tough to slay and can have tons of causes. Many people also equate lag to FPS drops too, not realizing their own end is causing just as many problems as server end issues sometimes when faced with lots of people in an area. Instanced content is good for certain things, bad for others. However, for many here, the open world of Wildstar also has instances in it. If one area gets too populated, it will shift. I'm not sure what the threshold is, but was happening quite a bit in certain areas right after F2P and led to some pretty weird things happening where someone would go to a place and no one would be there for them, but someone else would have 100 people there. That can be detrimental if someone isn't looking at Zone Chat or something, but it does help a bit with lag issues here and there. Edited December 8, 2015 by Kitsune Hazard | |} ----